Apple exec: making tech "fantastic" is better than making it first

He also praised the iPhone X notch

Apple has long been accused of celebrating features in its new iPhones that have been available on Android handsets for years; Samsung even made an ad that mocks its rival for often being one step behind everyone else. But according to Apple's VP of iPod, iPhone, and iOS product marketing, Greg Joswiak, being first to introduce something isn’t that important when your version is the best.

Many have pointed out that facial recognition systems like the iPhone X’s FaceID have been around long before Apple showed off its implementation, but in an interview with Tom’s Guide, Joswiak defended the feature and called out Samsung’s version without mentioning the company by name.

It doesn’t matter if you’re first to a general idea, it’s about being first to making it fantastic, and that’s what we try to do. Whether it’s the chip team working with our hardware team or our software team with our human interface team — it is one team here. No one else can match that […]

We had a line of sight on how to do real facial recognition, in a way never done before. It would be really hard to do, but we just didn’t want to do it the way others had, which could literally be spoofed with a picture.

FaceID isn’t impervious to spoofing, either. It can be fooled by a 3D-printed mask and a recent video showed a 10-year-old child unlocking his Mother’s iPhone X using his face.

Joswiak cited one example of this “fantastic” tech as the iPhone X’s contentious notch, which contains some of the phone’s sensors. “With all of those components, this is one of the most densely packed technology areas I think we've ever done. It's one of the most sophisticated pieces of technology we've ever done in such an incredibly small space," he said.